Analysts at Bank of America/Merrill Lynch are expounding opportunities to profit from the burgeoning waste disposal industry, which it estimates at $1 trillion at present but says could double within the next decade. They have compiled a list of more than 80 companies which may benefit most from the push for recycling waste, generating energy from biomass and building facilities to process or reduce waste. It’s an industry that is likely to grow exponentially as incomes rise, especially in emerging economies, BofA/ML says in a note:

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It’s not shaping up to be a good year for emerging equities. They are almost 3 percent in the red while their developed world counterparts have gained more than 7 percent and Wall Street is at record highs. When we explored this topic last month, what stood out was the deepening profit squeeze and steep falls in return-on-equity (ROE). The latest earnings season provides fresh proof of this trend and is handily summarized in a Morgan Stanley note which crunches the earnings numbers for the last 2012 quarter.

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“Abenomics” is the buzzword in Japan these days — it refers to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s aggressive reflationary fiscal and monetary policies that triggered the yen’s 10 percent decline against the dollar and 17 percent rally in Tokyo stocks this year.

The rupee is 8 percent up from last summer’s record lows. Foreigners have ploughed $17 billion into Indian stocks and bonds since Sept 2012 and foreign ownership of Indian shares is at a record high 22.7 percent, Morgan Stanley reckons. And all it has taken to change the mood has been the announcement of a few reforms (allowing foreign direct investment into retail, some fuel and rail price hikes and raising FDI limits in some sectors). A controversial double taxation law has been pushed back. The government has sold some stakes in state-run companies (it offloaded 10 percent of Oil India last week, netting $585 million). If the measures continue, the central bank may cut interest rates further.

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Markets got a fright today when luxury goods maker Richemont reported stagnant Asian sales in the last three months of 2012. Richemont shares as well as those in its rivals such as LVMH (maker of Louis Vuitton handbags and Hennessy cognac) tanked after the news.

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(corrects name of hedge fund in para 3 to Symphony Financial Partners)

Any doubt about the importance of a weaker yen in thawing the frozen Japanese economy will have been dispelled by the Nikkei’s surge to 32-month highs this week. Since early December, when it became clear an incoming Shinzo Abe administration would do its best to weaken the yen, the equity index has surged as the yen has fallen.